GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which has a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7790 will be 67% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is a lot (about 79%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24800 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is a lot (more or less 54%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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