GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which comes with clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (about 63%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29568 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 63%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7392 (63%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.