GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a clock speed of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 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 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850 should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot (approximately 108%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28640 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is a lot (about 317%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.