GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which features clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit better 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 should be much (approximately 314%) faster with regards to AF 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 is also dependant 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 max fill rate.