GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which features core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 96 SPUs as well as 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 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be a lot (approximately 86%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (86%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be a lot (about 271%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (271%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of 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 colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.