GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 822 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1002 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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 in general, because of 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 should be much (more or less 46%) more effective at texture 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 is quite a bit (about 37%) better at AA than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.