GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be 55% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is a lot (about 38%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (38%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be much (more or less 93%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (93%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.