GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1100 MHz on this card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be much (more or less 51%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16032 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be just a bit (approximately 14%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its 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 core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.