GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 147 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (more or less 773%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68000 (773%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.