GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7790, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 112 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 7790 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (about 37%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 7790. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a small bit (approximately 20%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7790, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (20%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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