GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this specific card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 91%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.