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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 comes with clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 260, which comes with GPU core speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also features 192 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 28 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 108%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39936 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is just a bit (more or less 19%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3072 (19%)

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 260

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 9800 GX2	GeForce GTX 260
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	Mar 2008	June 16, 2008
Code Name	G92	G200
Memory	512 MB (x2)	896 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz (x2)	576 MHz
Memory Speed	2000 MHz (x2)	1998 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	197 watts	182 watts
Bandwidth	128000 MB/sec	111888 MB/sec
Texel Rate	76800 Mtexels/sec	36864 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	19200 Mpixels/sec	16128 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	128 (x2)	192
Texture Mapping Units	64 (x2)	64
Render Output Units	16 (x2)	28
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	256-bit (x2)	448-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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 the video card could 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 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

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