GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 230, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (203%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 773%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68000 (773%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.