GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1625 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 260X should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 46400 (81%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is a lot (approximately 196%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40800 (196%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (69%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.