GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 850 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 96 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (42%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB will be quite a bit (approximately 50%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It 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 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.