GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 101 Watts (202%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 will be 425% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (425%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a lot (approximately 473%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (473%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.