GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430, which comes with a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 16 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 430		60 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 430 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be a lot (approximately 136%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (136%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be much (more or less 136%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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