GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should in theory be a small bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is much (about 27%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (45%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.