GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 147 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (more or less 773%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68000 (773%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 per second. This figure is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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 reach the max fill rate.