GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which has a clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be much (more or less 144%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (22%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.