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

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which features core speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. 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

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (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 (more or less 38%) faster with regards to texture 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

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a lot (about 215%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.