GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all that to the Geforce GTX 680, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 128 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
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (290%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically perform 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 will be quite a bit (about 1363%) more effective at texture filtering 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.