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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GT 640 DDR3

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB comes with a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare that to the GeForce GT 640 DDR3, which has GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 1782 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		65 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be 1% quicker than the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
	Difference: 576 (1%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be a bit (more or less 17%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 640 DDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (50%)

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

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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

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GeForce GT 640 DDR3

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 9800 GT 512MB	GeForce GT 640 DDR3
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	July 2008	June 2012
Code Name	G92a/b	GK107
Memory	512 MB	2048 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz	900 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	3564 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	105 watts	65 watts
Bandwidth	57600 MB/sec	57024 MB/sec
Texel Rate	33600 Mtexels/sec	28800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	9600 Mpixels/sec	14400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	112	384
Texture Mapping Units	56	32
Render Output Units	16	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	DDR3
Bus Width	256-bit	128-bit
Fab Process	65/55 nm	28 nm
Transistors	754 million	1300 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11.0
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

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