GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 850M, which comes with GPU core speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 850M is 25% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be a lot (approximately 298%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26240 (298%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9616 (219%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.