GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 420, which features 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

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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

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should be 33% faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is much (approximately 371%) faster with regards to 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

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should be much (more or less 136%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.