GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 280, which has clock speeds of 602 MHz on the GPU, and 1107 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs 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 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280, in theory, should perform a little 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 should be quite a bit (about 59%) faster with regards to 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, but only just. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.