GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 72896 (285%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is much (approximately 227%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20000 (227%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17200 (391%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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