GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be 22% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be much (about 127%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26432 (127%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (14%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.