GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9500 GT DDR2

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, which features clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 will be much (more or less 100%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4400 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should be a lot (approximately 100%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (100%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.