GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which has core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (98%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should be 167% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a lot (approximately 227%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (227%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a lot (about 162%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (162%)

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 moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.