GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which comes with clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is a lot (about 136%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (136%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is quite a bit (about 136%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.