GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 M260, which has a core clock frequency of 715 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be 260% faster than the Radeon R7 M260 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be a lot (more or less 82%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14040 (82%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4680 (82%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.