Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT DDR2 – better than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3

While choosing an inexpensive video card, we are unlikely to expect speed records in most recent games from it. We would rather want it be cheaper and operate stably. GeForce 9500GT cards of which we are talking today are rather weak in terms of modern gaming standards but are also cheap enough. But the snag is that these video cards are equipped with both DDR-2 and the faster DDR-3 memory. The latter is of course more expensive, but is it worth the extra dollars paid? We'll try to answer this and other questions in our today's review. As a video card of the GeForce 9500GT DDR-2 type, we'll be using Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT.

The box for Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is of small size and is styled in mostly green tints. On the front side of the box, the manufacturer displayed the key specifications of the video card, its photo, and an image of a combat robot with a proprietary emblem.

Looking at the rear side of the box, we can explore the "anatomy" of the video card and go deep into its technical details.

Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is equipped with an adapter from S-video to the composite output plus an S-video connector, as well as a disk with drivers, and a user's manual. The package bundle is not rich, but the price for Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is also lower that it could be, due to that.

Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is equipped with a D-sub connector, which allowed the manufacturer to give up the respective adapter in the bundle. Due to the "single-storeyed" cooling system and the small length of the PCB, the new product will take up one expansion slot and fit even within a tight computer housing.

The cooling system of Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is fastened reliably with four springed screws, and the PCB almost does not bend.

Under the cooling system, there is a GPU NVIDIA G96 and eight DDR-2 video memory chips.

The GPU NVIDIA G96 belongs to the first revision and contains 32 active unified processors. Its operating clock speeds are 575/1400 MHz, which is a bit higher than the recommended 550/1400. The increase of the clock speed of the raster domain by 25 MHz let the manufacturer declare the overclocking, but that almost did not affect the speed of the video card.

The DDR2 video memory chips are made by Qimonda and offer 2.0 ns access time, which is equivalent to the effective clock speed 1000 MHz. It is just the frequency at which it runs.

The cooling system of Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is unusual in not only that its fan is shifted relative to the GPU chip, but also in that its copper insert to dissipate heat from the GPU is not glued, not pressed into the main aluminum radiator, but fastened with four screws. However, that is unlikely to affect the efficiency of the cooling system.

We are now bringing in a table of detailed specifications for Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT, GeForce 9500GT DDR-2, and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3.

As you can see, the difference in the video memory frequency between GeForce 9500GT DDR-2 and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 amounts to 600 MHz.

Testing the cooling system

We'll be testing the cooling system of Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT with FUR Renderer Benchmark 1.4.0 in the mode of testing the video card for stability at 1920x1200 and 8X FSAA enabled. The video card was warmed up for over ten minutes. We produced the following results:

The GPU of Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT was warmed up from 51 C in the 2D mode to 69 C under load. At the same time, the cooling system remained quiet.

The Tests

We'll be testing the video cards on a test bench of the following configuration:

As contenders to Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT, we selected GeForce 9500GT with DDR-3 video memory and Radeon HD 4670 which is close to it at the price. If we need to find out how justified the purchase of GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 is over GeForce 9500GT DDR-2, it makes sense to take account of its official competitor - Radeon HD 4670. To test Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3, we used the driver GeForce 178.24, and for tests of Radeon HD 4670 we used Catalyst 8.10. Since the tested video cards are relatively weak, we pushed down some settings in the test games:

The first results were produced in 3DMark 06.

At 3DMark 06, GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 left Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT behind by merely 18 per cent. At the same time, Radeon HD 4670 proved 47.4% faster than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3.

In 3DMark Vantage, we enabled merely the Entry mode since it is aimed at video cards of the GeForce 9500GT level. At this test, GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 proved not much more powerful than Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT. At the same time, Radeon HD 4670 was faster than GeForce 9500 DDR-3 by 47% at the overall number of points, and by 64.8% at the number of GPU score points.

We'll be running further tests in the modes with the FSAA and AF disabled.

At Call of Duty, Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT was a little bit behind GeForce GeForce 9500GT DDR-3. At the same time, Radeon HD 4670 left GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 behind by 80% on average.

At Need for Speed Pro Street Racing, the difference in speed between Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 is negligible. At the same time, Radeon HD 4670 proved faster than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 by 79.9% on average.

At Crysis, the difference in speed between Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 turned out to be really minor. Radeon HD 4670 once again demonstrated its power over GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 which is close to it by the price and left it behind by 95.4% on average.

Call of Juarez proved to be highly demanding to the video memory speed, so Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT lagged behind GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 by 25.3% on average. We also can't help noticing that although GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 beat Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT, its speed anyway is too small for a comfortable gameplay. But Radeon HD 4670 left GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 behind by 63.4% on average, thus demonstrating a speed level acceptable for a comfortable gameplay.

At Race Driver: GRID, the difference in speed between Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT and GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 turned out to be negligible. On the other hand, Radeon HD 4670 proved faster than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 by 128.1% on average, that is, by more than twice faster.

On this diagram, we showed the speed difference between GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 and GeForce 9500GT DDR-2 in percentage, and we took average values for games. As you can see, only at 3DMark 06 and Call of Juarez the superiority of GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 over GeForce 9500GT DDR-2 is substantial. In other cases, it is not higher than 11%.

Final Words

Based on the results of our tests, we can clearly see that GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 offers no special advantages over GeForce 9500GT DDR-2 which was represented by Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT in our review. Both the video cards showed close results. A weighty advantage of Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is seen from its much lower price as compared to GeForce 9500GT DDR-3. See for yourselves:

Therefore, we believe Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT is the optimum candidate for an inexpensive video card which allows playing most recent games at low settings.