GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (860%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is a lot (more or less 809%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (809%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot (approximately 627%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (627%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.