GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, which comes with a clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is quite a bit (more or less 206%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should be a lot (approximately 53%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.