GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features GPU clock speed of 924 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (about 740%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65120 (740%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (approximately 908%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39952 (908%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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