GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 5830 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is much (about 115%) better at texture 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 a better choice, and very much so. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 processed in one second.

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