GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be 71% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 40896 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be just a bit (approximately 17%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (more or less 125%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (125%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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