GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

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

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB, in theory, should be much 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 is quite a bit (about 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

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and very much so. (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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.