GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs Radeon R9 M370X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M370X, which features a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M370X should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 33600 (88%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X will be much (more or less 21%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		32000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X is much (about 94%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (94%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 card could possibly record 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 the core 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.