GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 285 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, which has GPU core speed of 648 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1242 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 240 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 30976 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be quite a bit (about 48%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (48%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB will be a little bit (more or less 8%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1536 (8%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of 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 Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.