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GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB has a GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and the 384 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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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 is 233% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (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 quite a bit (more or less 191%) faster with regards to 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 running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, by a large margin. (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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB GeForce 9800 GX2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year May 2008 Mar 2008
Code Name G92 G92
Memory 384 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 550 MHz 600 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1600 MHz 2000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 84 watts 197 watts
Bandwidth 38400 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 76800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 6600 Mpixels/sec 19200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 128 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 48 64 (x2)
Render Output Units 12 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 192-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65 nm 65 nm
Transistors 754 million 754 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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