GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 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 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 102 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 122% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 269%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56000 (269%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (85%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.