GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, which has a core clock speed 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 features 96 SPUs, 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 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (70%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24960 (65%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be just a bit (approximately 7%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1776 (7%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be a lot (more or less 55%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3660 (55%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.