GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 166 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 249600 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 312%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 82400 (312%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.