GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 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 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is 22% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be much (more or less 127%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26432 (127%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (14%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.