GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 450, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 902 MHz on this particular card. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 450 should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 25%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6144 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2128 (20%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.