GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430, which comes with core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 430 should in theory be much better 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 should be a lot (more or less 136%) better 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 quite a bit (about 136%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.