GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1026 MHz on this model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28096 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be much (more or less 50%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is much (approximately 100%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (100%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.