GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 650

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 650, which has clock speeds of 1058 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 384 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 133 Watts (208%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 60% quicker than the GeForce GTX 650 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (60%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (about 127%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 650. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42944 (127%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a little bit (approximately 13%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 650, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2272 (13%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.