GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 560, which comes with clock speeds of 810 MHz on the GPU, and 1001 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89728 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be quite a bit (more or less 72%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18960 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be a lot (approximately 293%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19320 (293%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.