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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 90 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 250 Watts
Difference: 160 Watts (178%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 127104 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be much (more or less 60%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 31200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 18800 (60%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is quite a bit (about 92%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9600 (92%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year October 2008 Nov 7, 2008
Code Name G94a/b R700
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 650 MHz 625 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1986 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 90 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 127104 MB/sec
Texel Rate 31200 Mtexels/sec 50000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 20000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 48 40 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 505 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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

Display Prices

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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