GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 82%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17000 (82%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.