GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7770, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7770 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 33600 (88%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 should be quite a bit (approximately 52%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7770 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9400 (142%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 potential to get to the max fill rate.