GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 950

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 950, which has a core clock speed of 1024 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1652 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 768 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 950 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 22272 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (about 56%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27648 (56%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 should be a lot (about 71%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13568 (71%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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