GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 4650 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 700 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 1GB will be a lot (approximately 118%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 1GB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.