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INTRODUCTION
Although not getting much news and reviews, budget graphics cards are actually a big market. These cards usually are cut-down version of the enthusiasts and mainstream cards. They are usually bundled with many pre-built system and are often what you will find at your local retailers. The budget graphic cards often are a good choice for people who wish to upgrade their system with integrated graphics to a discreet card because they free up the precious system RAM that the integrated GPU utilizes. Furthermore, by upgrading the integrated GPU to a discreet GPU, you are not only getting a better performance but usually also getting more features and functions.
Since the GTX 200 series’ launch, NVIDIA has revamped their whole current line-up of graphic cards. They have shifted to 9000 series and GTX 200 series, with the GTX 200s sitting on the top of the performance bracket and the 9000 series occupying the mainstream and budget market. Their new budget card is the GeForce 9500 GT. This card will initially be manufactured with 65 nm fabrication process but soon NVIDIA will move it to the 55 nm as do all of the current NVIDIA cards.
GeForce 9500 GT takes over the old GeForce 8500 GT/8600 GT. As the specifications reveal, both cards have very similar specs. The biggest changes 9500 GT brings is the PCI Express 2.0, other than that, there is no major functional difference between this and older cards.
| Testing Cards' Specification | ||||
| GeForce 9500 GT | GeForce 8600 GTS | GeForce 8600 GT | GeForce 8500 GT | |
| Fabrication Process | 65 nm (55 nm coming) | 65 nm | 65nm | 65nm |
|
Core Clock Rate |
550 MHz | 675 MHz | 540 MHz | 450 MHz |
| SP Clock Rate | 1,400 MHz | 1,450 MHz | 1190 MHz | 900 MHz |
| Streaming Processors | 32 | 32 | 32 | 16 |
| Memory Type | DDR2/GDDR3 | GDDR3 | DDR3 | DDR2 |
| Memory Clock | 800 (GDDR3) and 500 (DDR2) | 1,000 MHz | 700 MHz | 400 MHz |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 25.6 (GDDR3) and 16.2 (DDR2) GB/s | 32.0 GB/s | 22.4 GB/s | 12.8 GB/s |
| Memory Size | 256/512 MB | 256/512 MB | 256/512 MB | 256/512 MB |
| Texture Filtering Rate | 8.8 GigaTexels/sec | 10.8 Giga Texcels/sec | 8.6 GigaTexels/sec | 3.6 GigaTexels/sec |
| Bus Type | PCI-E 2.0 | PCI-E 1.0 | PCI-E 1.0 | PCI-E 1.0 |
All GeForce 9500 GT share the same 32 processor cores, 550 MHz of core clock, 1400 MHz of processor clock, and 8.8 GT/s of texture fillrate. However, you can find cards using either DDR2 or GDDR3 and with 512MB or 256MB of RAM. The memory clock will be difference depends on types of RAM is being used.
|
Feature/Specification |
GDDR 2 |
GDDR 3 |
|
Memory Clock
|
500 MHz
|
800 MHz
|
|
Memory Amount
|
256/512 MB
|
256 / 512 MB
|
|
Memory Interface
|
128 bit
|
128 bit
|
|
Memory Bandwidth
|
16 GB/s
|
25.6 GB/s
|
All of the cards will support NVIDIA’s SLI technology, HD PureVideo, PhysX, DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.1, and Shader Model 4.0. The cards will also support HDCP and HDMI via adapter. They will draw a maximum 50W of power thus no adapter is needed and with maximum temperature of 105°C.
In this review, we will take a look at the Foxconn 9500 GT, which comes with 256MB GDDR3.
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