GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which comes with core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 121 Watts (242%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 Ultra should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 87680 (548%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is much (approximately 345%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30368 (345%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10288 (234%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.