GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 280, which features core clock speeds of 602 MHz on the GPU, and 1107 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. 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 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 59%) more effective at texture 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 screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in one 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. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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 reach the max fill rate.