GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 270X, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 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 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (114%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (more or less 203%) more effective at texture filtering 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 high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, by far. (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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.