GeForce 930M vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should be 11% faster than the GeForce 930M overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 930M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 930M should be a lot (more or less 153%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 930M		22272 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13472 (153%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 930M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 930M		7424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3024 (69%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.