GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 64 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is much (more or less 27%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be much (more or less 58%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (58%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 in a 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 number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on lots of 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.