GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		63 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 27 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB is 11% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is much (about 63%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be quite a bit (about 63%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (63%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.