GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 144 SPUs as well as 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 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is a lot (about 85%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be a lot (more or less 116%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

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