GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 137 Watts (228%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (344%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 586%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65600 (586%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (586%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.