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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 comes with a GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM is set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which features a clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660 140 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 57 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 13% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
Difference: 16192 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be just a bit (approximately 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1600 (2%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 660 23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4320 (23%)

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

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9800 GX2 GeForce GTX 660
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year Mar 2008 September 2012
Code Name G92 GK106
Memory 512 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz (x2) 980 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz (x2) 6008 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 197 watts 140 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 144192 MB/sec
Texel Rate 76800 Mtexels/sec 78400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19200 Mpixels/sec 23520 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 (x2) 960
Texture Mapping Units 64 (x2) 80
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 24
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 192-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 28 nm
Transistors 754 million 2540 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11.0
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 number is calculated 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 applied in a second.

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

Display Prices

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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