GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which features a clock speed of 738 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1100 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be 22% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be quite a bit (more or less 41%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13632 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2208 (23%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.