GeForce 8800 GT 1GB 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 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 64 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, 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 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be much (more or less 62%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

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