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GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB features a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 112 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 105 Watts
Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is much (more or less 62%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 20800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 12800 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 9600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 800 (8%)

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

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GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year Oct 2007 Feb 2008
Code Name G92 G94a/b
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz 650 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 105 watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 33600 Mtexels/sec 20800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 9600 Mpixels/sec 10400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 112 64
Texture Mapping Units 56 32
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 65/55 nm
Transistors 754 million 505 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

One Response to “GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB”
(PhysX Card - 8800GT) MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC Overclock Edition says:

[...] GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware ... Don't go philosophical on me and play [...]

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