GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 914 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 142 Watts (258%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 300% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (about 110%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 950M. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40240 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce GTX 950M, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4576 (31%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.