GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, which has a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is much (approximately 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8976 (36%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 660 (7%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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