GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which features GPU clock speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73792 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is much (approximately 81%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high 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 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12720 (118%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.