GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which comes with a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be 25% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is a lot (about 206%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be quite a bit (more or less 53%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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