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GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB features core clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which features core speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 112 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same texel fill rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at anisotropic filtering. (explain)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel fill rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be able to handle the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 9800 GT 1GB

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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model	GeForce 9800 GT 1GB	GeForce 9800 GT 512MB
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	July 2008	July 2008
Code Name	G92a/b	G92a/b
Memory	1024 MB	512 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz	600 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	105 watts	105 watts
Bandwidth	57600 MB/sec	57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate	33600 Mtexels/sec	33600 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	9600 Mpixels/sec	9600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	112	112
Texture Mapping Units	56	56
Render Output Units	16	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	65/55 nm	65/55 nm
Transistors	754 million	754 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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

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