GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which comes with clock speeds of 1006 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (290%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 should be much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166656 (651%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is a lot (more or less 1363%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 119968 (1363%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (more or less 632%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27792 (632%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.