GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450, which comes with a core clock frequency of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 902 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 12672 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ is quite a bit (about 89%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22176 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 is a little bit (approximately 6%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 720 (6%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.