GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 285 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 648 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1242 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 30976 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 48%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (48%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB should be a small bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1536 (8%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.