GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should perform much faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a small bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.