GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 850 MHz on this specific model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be much (approximately 77%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (77%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is superior to the GeForce GT 340, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.