GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator 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 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (more or less 203%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53600 (203%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot (more or less 385%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (385%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.