GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (70%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7790 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is quite a bit (about 536%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (536%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (264%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.