GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 150, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 740 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 500 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 57 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 150 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is a lot (approximately 79%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20960 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 should be quite a bit (approximately 79%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5240 (79%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.