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GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 features clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 147 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 25600 MB/sec
Difference: 102400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (approximately 773%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 8800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 68000 (773%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 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

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GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 GeForce 9800 GX2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year July 2008 Mar 2008
Code Name G96b G92
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 550 MHz 600 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1600 MHz 2000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 197 watts
Bandwidth 25600 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8800 Mtexels/sec 76800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4400 Mpixels/sec 19200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 128 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 16 64 (x2)
Render Output Units 8 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 55 nm 65 nm
Transistors 314 million 754 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0, PCI PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

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GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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