GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7950

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7950, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 214400 (838%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 is much (more or less 918%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 80800 (918%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (482%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.