GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 320, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 790 MHz on this particular card. It features 72 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 97 Watts (226%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 45120 (178%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is much (approximately 233%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30240 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is a lot (about 150%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 320, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6480 (150%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write 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 - 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.