GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450, which has GPU core speed of 783 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 902 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 450 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be just a bit (more or less 20%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be a small bit (about 20%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2128 (20%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few 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.