GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 250X, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 250X should be 25% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X is a lot (approximately 92%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (92%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (54%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per 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 better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.