GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 230, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be quite a bit (about 200%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past 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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.