GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which has core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 160 Watts (178%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be 121% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 60%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (60%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (92%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number 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 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.