GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specs 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 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is 69% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (69%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be quite a bit (approximately 62%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5456 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.