GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 1060 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, which features a clock frequency of 1506 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 2000 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 16 nm design. It is made up of 1152 SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 139008 (241%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is much (about 421%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87632 (421%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (about 595%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 61888 (595%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.