GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be 13% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be much (approximately 85%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7656 (116%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.