GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which features clock speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7850 should be 860% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (860%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be much (more or less 108%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28640 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is quite a bit (approximately 317%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20920 (317%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.