GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 680, which features core speeds of 1006 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically be much better than 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 much (more or less 68%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, and very much so. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.