GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1625 MHz on this specific card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 82 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon R7 260X in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 25%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be just a bit (approximately 9%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R7 260X, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (9%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 applied per second.

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