GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7850, which comes with GPU core speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot (approximately 108%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28640 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be much (approximately 317%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.