GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 420, which has GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 48 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is much (approximately 371%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (371%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is superior to the GeForce GT 420, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.