GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 315

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 315, which comes with core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 790 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (279%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 406% faster than the GeForce GT 315 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 102720 (406%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 668%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66800 (668%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce GT 315, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14200 (284%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.