GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 92 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (186%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 129%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43200 (129%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen 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 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (100%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.