GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 876 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 850M will be 25% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be a lot (about 298%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26240 (298%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9616 (219%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.