GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be 325% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is quite a bit (about 314%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (314%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a lot (about 373%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (373%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.