GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 295X2, which comes with a core clock speed of 1018 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 295X2		500 Watts
	Difference: 416 Watts (495%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 295X2 should be 1567% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 601600 (1567%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be quite a bit (more or less 1257%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 331936 (1257%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be much (approximately 1874%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 123704 (1874%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.