GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R5 M230, which comes with GPU clock speed of 780 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is quite a bit (more or less 77%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (77%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1280 (41%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.