GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 825 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a small bit (more or less 18%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (154%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.