GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which features GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX should be much (more or less 108%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (108%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.