GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 902 MHz on this model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 450 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 is a bit (about 20%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2128 (20%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.