GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 96 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) should theoretically be just a bit better than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) will be quite a bit (approximately 27%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.