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

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, which has core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 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 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should theoretically be much faster than 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 should be much (more or less 282%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 118%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.