GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 1100 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX+, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be quite a bit (approximately 51%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16032 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be just a bit (approximately 14%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (14%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of 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.