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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 105 Watts
Radeon HD 6870 151 Watts
Difference: 46 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 76800 (133%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (about 50%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 33600 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 16800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is quite a bit (more or less 200%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 9600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 19200 (200%)

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.

Price Comparison

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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Radeon HD 6870
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2008 October 2010
Code Name G92a/b Barts XT
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz 900 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 4200 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 105 watts 151 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 134400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 33600 Mtexels/sec 50400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 9600 Mpixels/sec 28800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 112 1120
Texture Mapping Units 56 56
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65/55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 754 million 1700 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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