GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB will be much (more or less 62%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be a little bit (about 8%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (8%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.