GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6770 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 800 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		108 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6770 1GB should be a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		67200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 73%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (73%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 1GB is much (approximately 38%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (38%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.