GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 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 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (230%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 should be 775% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (775%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (more or less 1538%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 135328 (1538%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 67664 (1538%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.