GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It features 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one 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 this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a 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. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.