GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 690, which features a clock speed of 915 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Geforce GTX 690 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256512 (200%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be a lot (about 205%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 157440 (205%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 690 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39360 (205%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.