GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 112 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is much (about 36%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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 the winner, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.