Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 64 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 112 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation 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 the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be much (approximately 62%) faster with regards to AF 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (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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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

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