GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 384 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 96 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be 20% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is much (about 144%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be a lot (more or less 22%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (22%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.