GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 465

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 465, which features a clock speed of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 802 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 352 SPUs, 44 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 25% faster than the GeForce GTX 465 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 25408 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (more or less 188%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50092 (188%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 465 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 224 (1%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.