GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which has GPU clock speed of 675 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 SPUs, 56 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 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (200%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be quite a bit (more or less 43%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11400 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15000 (227%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.