GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 850 MHz on this card. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 47 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 will be 18% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 146%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45600 (146%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a bit (about 8%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (8%)

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 moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.