GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is much (about 62%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be just a bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card 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 Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.