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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB features a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which comes with clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 90 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 107 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (more or less 146%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 31200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 45600 (146%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing 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 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 8800 (85%)

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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB GeForce 9800 GX2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year October 2008 Mar 2008
Code Name G94a/b G92
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 650 MHz 600 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 2000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 90 watts 197 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 31200 Mtexels/sec 76800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 19200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 128 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 48 64 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65/55 nm 65 nm
Transistors 505 million 754 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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