GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, which comes with a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 will be 14% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 should be a little bit (approximately 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 160 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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