GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which features core clock speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 19328 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be just a bit (more or less 5%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1344 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be a lot (approximately 90%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.