GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 1060 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, which has GPU core speed of 1506 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 2000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1152 Stream Processors, 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 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 139008 (241%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be much (about 421%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87632 (421%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.