GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 850 MHz on this model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 127 Watts (181%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (135%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 336%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (336%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.