GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a lot (about 68%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (68%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be a little bit (about 19%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.