GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260X, which comes with a clock speed of 825 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R7 M260X should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 58%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 M260X. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11400 (58%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be much (about 58%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R7 M260X, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (58%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.