GeForce 8600 GS vs 9500 GS

Place in the ranking	1234	1364
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	0.84	0.36
Architecture	Tesla (2006−2010)	Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code name	G96	G84
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	29 July 2008 (16 years ago)	17 April 2007 (17 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	32	16
Core clock speed	550 MHz	540 MHz
Number of transistors	314 million	289 million
Manufacturing process technology	65 nm	80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	40 Watt	47 Watt
Texture fill rate	8.800	4.320
Floating-point processing power	0.088 TFLOPS	0.03808 TFLOPS
ROPs	8	8
TMUs	16	8

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 1.0 x16
Width	1-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	None

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	DDR2	DDR2
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	512 MB
Memory bus width	128 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	504 MHz	400 MHz
Memory bandwidth	16.13 GB/s	12.8 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors

2x DVI, 1x S-Video

1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.1 (10_0)	11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model	4.0	4.0
OpenGL	3.3	3.3
OpenCL	1.1	1.1
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	1.1	1.1

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

9500 GS 0.48
+100%

8600 GS 0.24

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

9500 GS 185
+103%

8600 GS 91

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.48	0.24
Recency	29 July 2008	17 April 2007
Chip lithography	65 nm	80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	40 Watt	47 Watt

9500 GS has a 100% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 1 year, a 23.1% more advanced lithography process, and 17.5% lower power consumption.

The GeForce 9500 GS is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce 8600 GS in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.