GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 420, which features core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB will be quite a bit (approximately 371%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (371%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.