GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which has core speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units 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 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be a lot (more or less 25%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6144 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

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