GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 420, which has core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 420 should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 is a lot (about 57%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 should be a lot (approximately 57%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (57%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.