GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

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

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 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should theoretically be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is quite a bit (more or less 85%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be much (more or less 116%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.