GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7790, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1500 MHz on this model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7790 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is quite a bit (about 169%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (169%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (54%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.