GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 150, which comes with core speeds of 740 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 57 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should in theory be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTS 150 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 will be a lot (approximately 79%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20960 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is quite a bit (more or less 79%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5240 (79%)

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 transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the 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 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.