GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 102 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 122% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 269%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56000 (269%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR 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 calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.