GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which has core speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 12672 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX should be quite a bit (more or less 72%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18144 (72%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1728 (16%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.