GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should perform a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB will be just a bit (more or less 18%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3824 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be a small bit (about 1%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 140 (1%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its 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 core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.