GeForce 840M vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which comes with GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory running at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 32 Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 840M		30 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 840M should be a lot (more or less 181%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 840M		24696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15896 (181%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 840M should be a lot (about 87%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 840M		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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.