GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 924 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 480 Stream Processors, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

The GeForce GTX 480, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (more or less 25%) faster with regards to 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 quite a bit (more or less 250%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.