GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which features core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. 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 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be quite a bit (approximately 136%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (136%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be much (more or less 136%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.