GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which has core speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 36%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8976 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is a small bit (more or less 7%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 660 (7%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.