GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 92 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 233% faster than the GeForce 8800 GS overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (approximately 191%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GS. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (191%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GS, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (191%)

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

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.