GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 420, which has core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 48 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be a lot (approximately 271%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (271%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is a lot (more or less 271%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (271%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.