GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 340, which features clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is 6% faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be a little bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be a lot (more or less 136%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.