GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 150, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 740 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 500 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.