GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 101 Watts (202%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 should perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (740%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be quite a bit (about 473%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (473%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be a lot (more or less 555%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.