GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (approximately 63%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29568 (63%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high 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 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.