GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which features clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GS, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (140%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS is a lot (approximately 200%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GS is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends 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.