GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which comes with core speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be much (about 119%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16944 (119%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be quite a bit (about 37%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3856 (37%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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