GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 67 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (250%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (approximately 91%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22200 (336%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.