GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1625 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 260X will be 81% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 46400 (81%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is much (approximately 196%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40800 (196%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X should be a lot (more or less 69%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.