GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (89%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be a lot (more or less 50%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (100%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.