GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 150, which has a core clock speed of 740 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 500 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 300% quicker than the GeForce GTS 150 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (more or less 62%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29440 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (about 62%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTS 150, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7360 (62%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.