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GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 12 ROPs.

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

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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 the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is quite a bit (about 200%) faster with regards to 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 using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is a better choice, by far. (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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Amazon.com

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GeForce GT 230

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB GeForce GT 230
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year May 2008 October 2009
Code Name G92 GT218
Memory 1536 MB 1536 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 550 MHz
Memory Speed 1600 MHz 1600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 84 watts 65 watts
Bandwidth 38400 MB/sec 38400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 8800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 6600 Mpixels/sec 4400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 32
Texture Mapping Units 48 16
Render Output Units 12 8
Bus Type GDDR3 DDR3
Bus Width 192-bit 192-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 754 million 260 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 230

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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