GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64256 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be quite a bit (approximately 68%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51968 (68%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 68%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12992 (68%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.