GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (135%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 will be 700% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (about 191%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (191%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (191%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.