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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB features a core clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 90 Watts
Difference: 15 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 192%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 20512 (192%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be a small bit (more or less 3%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 288 (3%)

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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB Radeon HD 3850 256MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year October 2008 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name G94a/b RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 256 MB
Core Speed 650 MHz 668 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 90 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 52992 MB/sec
Texel Rate 31200 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 48 16
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 505 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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