GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M275X should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X should be much (more or less 73%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (73%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X is a lot (about 38%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (38%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.