GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 320, which features core clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 790 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 72 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 230 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 13120 (52%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 will be a lot (approximately 47%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4160 (47%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 230 is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80 (2%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.