GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 1GB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 27%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 is superior to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (57%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in one second.

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