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

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs 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 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be a lot (more or less 27%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6576 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.