GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 420, which features GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 48 Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 420, in theory, should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 should be much (approximately 57%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 is much (approximately 57%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.