GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB comes with core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 output 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.