GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GT 1030

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 1030, which makes use of a 16 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1265 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 8448 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be quite a bit (about 30%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9280 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 1030 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9840 (95%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 per second.

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