GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 640 DDR3

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 640 DDR3, which comes with core clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1782 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		65 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 should be 256% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41024 (256%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 640 DDR3 will be a bit (about 9%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is much (more or less 118%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (118%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends 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 max fill rate.