GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is made up of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB will be 260% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be a lot (approximately 282%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24800 (282%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is a lot (more or less 118%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.