GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 will be 50% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be quite a bit (more or less 21%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6600 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be quite a bit (about 56%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (56%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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