GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be 100% faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 86%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (86%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 271%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.