GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 450, which has a GPU core clock speed of 783 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 902 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 450 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41728 (261%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be a bit (about 5%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1344 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 should be much (more or less 90%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5928 (90%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its 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 the core 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.