GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 320, which comes with a clock speed of 540 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 790 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 72 SPUs, 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 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (95%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 13120 (52%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be quite a bit (approximately 104%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13440 (104%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.