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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB features a GPU clock speed of 650 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 828 MHz on this card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 105984 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 48384 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be much (more or less 46%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 9824 (46%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 X2 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10976 (106%)

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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 X2

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 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year October 2008 Apr 4, 2008
Code Name G94a/b RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 650 MHz 668 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1656 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 90 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 105984 MB/sec
Texel Rate 31200 Mtexels/sec 21376 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 21376 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 48 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 505 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 X2

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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