GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a small bit (about 9%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4032 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1008 (9%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.