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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be 10% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (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 is a lot (approximately 36%) better 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

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, not by a very large margin though. (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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 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 video 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.