GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTX should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be a lot (about 28%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10432 (28%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be just a bit (more or less 17%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1992 (17%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.