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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 280, which has a clock speed of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1107 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

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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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 280 should be just a 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 will 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (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

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GeForce 9800 GX2

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GeForce GTX 280

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 9800 GX2	GeForce GTX 280
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	Mar 2008	June 17, 2008
Code Name	G92	G200
Memory	512 MB (x2)	1024 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz (x2)	602 MHz
Memory Speed	2000 MHz (x2)	2214 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	197 watts	236 watts
Bandwidth	128000 MB/sec	141696 MB/sec
Texel Rate	76800 Mtexels/sec	48160 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	19200 Mpixels/sec	19264 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	128 (x2)	240
Texture Mapping Units	64 (x2)	80
Render Output Units	16 (x2)	32
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	256-bit (x2)	512-bit
Fab Process	65 nm	65 nm
Transistors	754 million	1400 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of 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.

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