GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 850 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be 42% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (42%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be quite a bit (approximately 50%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.