GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 230, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is quite a bit (more or less 200%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen 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 speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at 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 card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.