GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 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 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB will be 33% faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB will be a lot (about 136%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (136%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be quite a bit (approximately 136%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.