GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M280X, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 62400 (244%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X will be a lot (approximately 473%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (473%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (227%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.