GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which features core speeds of 1006 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64256 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is much (more or less 68%) better at AF than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51968 (68%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12992 (68%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.