GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1026 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses 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 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be 285% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 72896 (285%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (approximately 227%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20000 (227%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.