GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 850 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (42%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 100%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be able to handle the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.