GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 150, which has GPU clock speed of 740 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 57 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 150 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 will be quite a bit (more or less 79%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20960 (79%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 150 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5240 (79%)

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

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.