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

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, which features GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a lot (about 282%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a 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 amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.