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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs along with 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 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is much (about 282%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		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 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.