GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which has a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

The Radeon HD 5670, in theory, should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a lot (about 34%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be much (approximately 68%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.