GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970, which has clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 970 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be quite a bit (more or less 225%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75600 (225%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (approximately 600%) better at AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 57600 (600%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.