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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 96 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

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

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general. (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 will be quite a bit (more or less 136%) more effective at texture 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 will be a lot (approximately 136%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.