GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 480, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 924 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 166 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 161408 (1009%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (approximately 59%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (59%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a lot (approximately 409%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (409%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in a second.

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