GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, which features a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 Stream Processors, 16 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
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GS is 50% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be quite a bit (approximately 200%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be a lot (approximately 50%) better at AA than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can 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 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.