GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be a bit (more or less 18%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3824 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 140 (1%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.