GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 260, which comes with clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 77 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 is 94% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 54288 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is just a bit (more or less 10%) better at AF than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6528 (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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel 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 get to the maximum fill rate.