GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5830, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be quite a bit (more or less 70%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (94%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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 maximum fill rate.