GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 320, which has GPU core speed of 540 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 790 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 72 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, in theory, should be quite a bit 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 a lot (approximately 104%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is quite a bit (more or less 53%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 320, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.