GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5670, which makes use of a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 400(80x5) SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5670 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be much (approximately 34%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5300 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 5670, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (68%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at 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 the graphics card could possibly write 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 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.