GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM), which comes with a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		63 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB will be a lot (more or less 38%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (3%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.