GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is much (about 38%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 reach the max fill rate.