GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which uses 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 particular card. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7790 will be 150% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 will be a lot (approximately 112%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29600 (112%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is much (more or less 142%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9400 (142%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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