GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which features a GPU core clock speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 960 Stream Processors, 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should be much faster than 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 (about 791%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, by far. (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 MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.