GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, which has GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 96 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be quite a bit (more or less 27%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is much (about 45%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number 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 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 calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.