GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 288 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should perform much faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be a lot (about 51%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16032 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8992 (76%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.