GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (135%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (approximately 191%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (191%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (191%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are 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 the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.