GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GT 220 GDDR3

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3, which features clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 1012 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		58 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB will be 19% quicker than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		32384 MB/sec
	Difference: 6016 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB should be much (about 164%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (164%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (32%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This 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 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 chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.