GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4770, which features a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4770		80 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should in theory be a little bit superior to the Radeon HD 4770 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4770		51200 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4770 is a small bit (approximately 15%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (15%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4770 should be a little bit (about 15%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (15%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.