GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which comes with clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M275X should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 46400 (181%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X is quite a bit (more or less 309%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (309%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X is quite a bit (about 227%) better at AA than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (227%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.