GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 738 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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 much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 63%) faster with regards to AF 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

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, and very much so. (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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.