GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 150, which features a GPU core clock speed of 740 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (182%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 150 should perform much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is much (approximately 438%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38560 (438%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is much (more or less 169%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7440 (169%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.