GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 64 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is a lot (approximately 136%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (136%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 136%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface 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 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.