GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which features a clock frequency of 594 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 144 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should theoretically be just a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is much (more or less 85%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 116%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of 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 this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.