GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 340, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is a bit (approximately 18%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB will be quite a bit (about 136%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (136%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in 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 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, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.