GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 TAUs, 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) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be 10% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be a lot (approximately 36%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8976 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be a little bit (about 7%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.