GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1502 MHz on this specific model. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 118592 (463%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (approximately 791%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69600 (791%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is much (about 435%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19120 (435%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.