GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M275X will be 25% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X should be a lot (more or less 73%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (73%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M275X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (38%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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