GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which has a clock speed of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (133%)

Texel Rate

Both cards have the exact same texel rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at anisotropic filtering. (explain)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 will be much (about 40%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (40%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock 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 better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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