GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1026 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units 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+		145 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be a lot better than 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 quite a bit (approximately 64%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18432 (64%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9792 (83%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out 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 DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.