GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should be a little bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.