GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 285 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, which has core clock speeds of 648 MHz on the GPU, and 1242 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 48%) more effective at AF 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

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 285 1GB is a better choice, but only just. (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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.