GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 64 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is much (approximately 50%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (50%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at FSAA, and be able to handle the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.