GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be 25% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 68%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a bit (more or less 19%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 also depends on many 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.