GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which has GPU clock speed of 783 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 902 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 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 GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be 0% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be a bit (more or less 20%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.