GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (114%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (367%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit (approximately 203%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53600 (203%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (385%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.