GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be much (more or less 255%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (255%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be much (approximately 136%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.