GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1038 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be much (more or less 131%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56448 (131%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be quite a bit (more or less 515%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 55632 (515%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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