GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 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 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 is 122% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a lot (about 151%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31400 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be much (about 123%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (123%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.