GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is made up of 64 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB will be quite a bit (more or less 27%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be much (more or less 58%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (58%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.