GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this specific card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be 6% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is a little bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.