Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is much (approximately 62%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (8%)

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

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GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

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GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 9600 GT 512MB	GeForce 9800 GT 1GB
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	Feb 2008	July 2008
Code Name	G94a/b	G92a/b
Memory	512 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	650 MHz	600 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	95 watts	105 watts
Bandwidth	57600 MB/sec	57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate	20800 Mtexels/sec	33600 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	10400 Mpixels/sec	9600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	64	112
Texture Mapping Units	32	56
Render Output Units	16	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	65/55 nm	65/55 nm
Transistors	505 million	754 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

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