GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 112 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be 10% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be much (about 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8976 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be just a bit (about 7%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.