GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7790, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7790 will be 150% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is much (more or less 112%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29600 (112%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.