GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460, which has a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (440%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be quite a bit (more or less 43%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11400 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (145%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.