GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M230, which features a core clock speed of 780 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be a lot (more or less 69%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R5 M230. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (69%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be much (more or less 112%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R5 M230, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3480 (112%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.