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GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, which has GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB will be much (more or less 282%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24800 (282%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 8800 GT 1GB

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GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 8800 GT 1GB	GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	Dec 2007	July 2008
Code Name	G92	G96b
Memory	1024 MB	512 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz	550 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	1600 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	105 watts	50 watts
Bandwidth	57600 MB/sec	25600 MB/sec
Texel Rate	33600 Mtexels/sec	8800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	9600 Mpixels/sec	4400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	112	32
Texture Mapping Units	56	16
Render Output Units	16	8
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	256-bit	128-bit
Fab Process	65 nm	55 nm
Transistors	754 million	314 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16 2.0, PCI
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 get to the maximum fill rate.

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