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GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB features a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 64 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 828 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 105984 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 48384 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be a small bit (about 3%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 20800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 576 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 is much (about 106%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10976 (106%)

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 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 X2

Amazon.com

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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 GT 512MB Radeon HD 3850 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Feb 2008 Apr 4, 2008
Code Name G94a/b RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 650 MHz 668 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1656 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 95 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 105984 MB/sec
Texel Rate 20800 Mtexels/sec 21376 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 21376 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 64 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16 (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 (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 X2

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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