GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a frequency of 500 MHz on this specific model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 12 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be much (more or less 206%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.