GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 570, which comes with GPU core speed of 732 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 950 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 480 Stream Processors, 60 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (161%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 570 is 296% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 113600 (296%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is quite a bit (about 66%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17520 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be a lot (approximately 344%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22680 (344%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.