GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which has GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 112 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be a lot (more or less 833%) better at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30000 (833%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (433%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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