GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which has a core clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1100 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GTX should be just a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 7040 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is quite a bit (more or less 75%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18576 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 540 (5%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.