GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (388%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 176384 (1102%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be much (approximately 461%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40608 (461%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 742%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32656 (742%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.