GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be quite a bit (about 68%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (68%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (19%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.