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GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB has a GPU clock speed of 513 MHz, and the 640 MB of GDDR3 RAM runs at 792 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 20 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which features clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GTX should be 11% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 7040 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be quite a bit (more or less 75%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18576 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 540 (5%)

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

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GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB

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GeForce 9800 GTX

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB	GeForce 9800 GTX
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	Nov 2006 (640)	April 2008
Code Name	G80	G92
Memory	640 MB	512 MB
Core Speed	513 MHz	675 MHz
Memory Speed	1584 MHz	2200 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	143 watts	140 watts
Bandwidth	63360 MB/sec	70400 MB/sec
Texel Rate	24624 Mtexels/sec	43200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	10260 Mpixels/sec	10800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	96	128
Texture Mapping Units	48	64
Render Output Units	20	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	320-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	90 nm	65 nm
Transistors	681 million	754 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

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