GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (440%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be much (approximately 43%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11400 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (145%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.