GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, which features clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 64 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be much (approximately 136%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (136%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.