GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which features clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 67 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (250%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (about 91%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be a lot (about 336%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22200 (336%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.