GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M395X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 723 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (49%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M395X will be 317% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is quite a bit (about 251%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66144 (251%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M395X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16536 (251%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 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 get to the max fill rate.