GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 295, which features a core clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 999 MHz. It also uses a 448-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 92 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should be 75% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 95776 (75%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be a bit (more or less 20%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be quite a bit (about 68%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13056 (68%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.