GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 64 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 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 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) will be quite a bit (approximately 100%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel fill rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at AA, and be able to handle the same 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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed 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 the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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