GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 24 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		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be a bit (more or less 13%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6600 (69%)

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. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed per second.

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