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 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 theoretically be a lot 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 a lot (approximately 136%) more effective at texture 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 a lot (more or less 136%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.