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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 280, which comes with GPU core speed of 602 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1107 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 240 SPUs, 80 TAUs, 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

The GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically 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 will be quite a bit (more or less 59%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a little bit (about 0%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

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