GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation 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 theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be much (about 62%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering 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 will be a bit (about 8%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.