GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 970 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 185600 (483%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (approximately 314%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 82800 (314%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 60600 (918%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.