GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which comes with clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be much better than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be a lot (approximately 82%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17000 (82%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be much (about 108%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (108%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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.