GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a lot (more or less 152%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (152%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is just a bit (about 19%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (19%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.