GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (183%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be a small bit (approximately 18%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be much (approximately 215%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14200 (215%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.