GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 166 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 280X should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 249600 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be much (about 312%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 82400 (312%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (more or less 312%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20600 (312%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.