GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which features a GPU core clock speed of 700 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 924 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 480 Stream Processors, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 119808 (208%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (approximately 25%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (approximately 250%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (250%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.