GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 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 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5830 should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 will be much (more or less 409%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36000 (409%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be much (approximately 191%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (191%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.