GeForce 830M vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR2 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 500 MHz on this particular card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce 830M overall. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 830M will be a lot (approximately 87%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7664 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 830M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3832 (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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.