GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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 much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (200%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB will be quite a bit (about 206%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.