GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M385X, which comes with GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M385X should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (275%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be much (about 600%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52800 (600%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be much (approximately 300%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (300%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high 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 texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.