GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (240%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be quite a bit (approximately 50%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is much (about 50%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.