GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a lot (more or less 27%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6576 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 140 (1%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. 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 bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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 max fill rate.