GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 64 SPUs, 32 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 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should in theory be a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be quite a bit (about 100%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel fill rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at FSAA, and be capable of handling the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.