GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which has core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be much (about 206%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be quite a bit (about 53%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.