GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which features a clock frequency of 594 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 144 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be 13% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be a lot (about 85%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be much (approximately 116%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7656 (116%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.