GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 450 should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 is a little bit (about 20%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 should be a bit (more or less 20%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.