GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which comes with core clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be much (approximately 29%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (13%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.