GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which has GPU clock speed of 822 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1002 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 384 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 27 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti should be 0% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (more or less 46%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24192 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti will be quite a bit (approximately 37%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7104 (37%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes 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 clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.