GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GT 220 GDDR3

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3, which comes with core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 1012 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 48 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		58 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		32384 MB/sec
	Difference: 25216 (78%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a lot (approximately 108%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (108%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (108%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.