GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB 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 is set to run at a speed of 1625 MHz on this card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 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 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 260X should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 65600 (171%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is quite a bit (more or less 133%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (133%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11000 (167%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.