GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (84%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5830 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be quite a bit (about 115%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (115%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (23%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.