GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 915 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is quite a bit (more or less 205%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68880 (205%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12360 (129%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.