GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is quite a bit (more or less 144%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is quite a bit (about 22%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.