GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GT 1030

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 1030, which comes with a clock speed of 1265 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 16 nm design. It is made up of 384 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (217%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be a bit faster than the GeForce GT 1030 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 8448 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is a lot (approximately 95%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19680 (95%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be a lot (about 95%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9840 (95%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.