GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, which has clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 64 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) will be 8% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) will be a lot (about 100%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at FSAA, and be able to handle the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.