GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be a little bit (more or less 18%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 136%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.