GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a frequency of 500 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is a lot (about 200%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be a lot (approximately 50%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.