GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which has a clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is quite a bit (more or less 200%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be much (approximately 50%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.