GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 4650 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 700 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 should theoretically be a bit better than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 1GB will be quite a bit (about 118%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 1GB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (9%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.