GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be a bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is much (about 58%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (58%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.