GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 384 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is 500% faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be much (about 408%) better at AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (408%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be much (about 154%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (154%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.