GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (240%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be much (about 50%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.