GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB 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 uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (114%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (367%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be much (more or less 203%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53600 (203%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (385%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.