GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 280, which comes with a core clock frequency of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1107 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 13696 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (approximately 59%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28640 (59%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 64 (0%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.