GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, which features GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB will be much (more or less 27%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 45%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (45%)

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 calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.