GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270X, which comes with a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (211%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit (approximately 285%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (285%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a lot (about 208%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (208%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.