GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 260, which has a clock frequency of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 999 MHz. It also uses a 448-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a small bit (about 10%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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 running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is the winner, 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.