GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 902 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 450, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 19328 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB will be a bit (about 5%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1344 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5928 (90%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.