GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which has a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M270X should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a bit (approximately 8%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M270X. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M270X is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (12%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.