GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 570, which has GPU core speed of 732 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 950 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 40 ROPs.

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, the GeForce GTX 570 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be quite a bit (approximately 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

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.