GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R7 370 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 370 4G, which features GPU core speed of 975 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 370 4G		110 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 87 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 370 4G should be 40% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (more or less 23%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 370 4G. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 370 4G		62400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 370 4G is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (63%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.