GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 96 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, in theory, should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be much (more or less 27%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.