GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which features a clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be 20% faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is quite a bit (approximately 144%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (22%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.