GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be much (about 27%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be a lot (more or less 45%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (45%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could 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 the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.