GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 240, which features GPU core speed of 730 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 240 should be 13% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 will be much (more or less 66%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 is much (approximately 33%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (33%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.