GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 850 MHz on this specific card. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (89%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (about 50%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be much (more or less 100%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (100%)

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 transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could 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 colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.