GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 118%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 512MB is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (9%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.