GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 902 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (86%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 70272 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 207%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51744 (207%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6672 (53%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.