GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units 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

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be just a 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 will be a lot (about 85%) better 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

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, by a large margin. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range 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 texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could 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 Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.