GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 27200 (170%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be a lot (more or less 62%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5456 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be a lot (approximately 224%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (224%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of 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 clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 could 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.