GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which features a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be a lot (about 809%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (809%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.