GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which features a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1026 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 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 GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (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 should be much (about 227%) faster with regards to texture 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 using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.