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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 has a clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It features 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 75 Watts
Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 52992 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 16000 MB/sec
Difference: 36992 (231%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 21%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 8800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1888 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be much (about 143%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 4400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 6288 (143%)

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

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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 Radeon HD 3850 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2008 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name G96a RV670 PRO
Memory 256 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 668 MHz
Memory Speed 1000 MHz 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 16000 MB/sec 52992 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8800 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4400 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 16
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 314 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0, PCI PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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