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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR2 memory runs at a speed of 500 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 310, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 589 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310 31 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 50 Watts
Difference: 19 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 is a lot (more or less 87%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310 4712 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4088 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 is much (approximately 87%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310 2356 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 2044 (87%)

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

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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Amazon.com

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GeForce GT 310

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 GeForce GT 310
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year July 2008 November 2009
Code Name G96a GT218
Memory 256 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 589 MHz
Memory Speed 1000 MHz 2000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 31 watts
Bandwidth 16000 MB/sec 16000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8800 Mtexels/sec 4712 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4400 Mpixels/sec 2356 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 16
Texture Mapping Units 16 8
Render Output Units 8 4
Bus Type DDR2 DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit 64-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 314 million 260 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0, PCI PCIe 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 310

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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