GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 1060 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, which features GPU core speed of 1506 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 2000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1152 Stream Processors, 72 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 139008 (241%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is quite a bit (about 421%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87632 (421%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 61888 (595%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.