GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 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 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (89%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is a bit (about 8%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (117%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.