GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which comes with GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should be a bit (approximately 2%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 160 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should be a bit (about 2%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80 (2%)

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 across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.