GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270X is 211% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (211%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be a lot (about 156%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48800 (156%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit (approximately 208%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (208%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.