GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same texel fill rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at anisotropic filtering. (explain)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.