GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which features GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 77 Watts (154%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6850 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 will be a lot (about 323%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28400 (323%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be a lot (approximately 464%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20400 (464%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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