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

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB has core clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, which comes with GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

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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

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (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 a lot (approximately 282%) more effective 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 using 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

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