GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 260, which features core speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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 512MB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 54288 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be a bit (more or less 10%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.