 |
 |
GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 5850
Intro
The GeForce 9800 GX2 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which comes with clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs along with 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.
Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| Radeon HD 5850 |
|
151 Watts |
| GeForce 9800 GX2 |
|
197 Watts |
|
|
Memory Bandwidth
Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)
Texel Rate
The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (about 47%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)| GeForce 9800 GX2 |
|
76800 Mtexels/sec |
| Radeon HD 5850 |
|
52200 Mtexels/sec |
|
|
Pixel Rate
If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, by a large margin. (explain)| Radeon HD 5850 |
|
23200 Mpixels/sec |
| GeForce 9800 GX2 |
|
19200 Mpixels/sec |
|
|
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
GeForce 9800 GX2Amazon.com
Check prices at:
|
Radeon HD 5850Amazon.com
Check prices at:
|
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
Specifications
| Model | GeForce 9800 GX2 | Radeon HD 5850 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | nVidia | AMD |
| Year | Mar 2008 | September 30, 2009 |
| Code Name | G92 | Cypress PRO |
| Memory | 512 MB (x2) | 1024 MB |
| Core Speed | 600 MHz (x2) | 725 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 2000 MHz (x2) | 4000 MHz |
| Power (Max TDP) | 197 watts | 151 watts |
| Bandwidth | 128000 MB/sec | 128000 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 76800 Mtexels/sec | 52200 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 19200 Mpixels/sec | 23200 Mpixels/sec |
| Unified Shaders | 128 (x2) | 1440(288x5) |
| Texture Mapping Units | 64 (x2) | 72 |
| Render Output Units | 16 (x2) | 32 |
| Bus Type | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 256-bit (x2) | 256-bit |
| Fab Process | 65 nm | 40 nm |
| Transistors | 754 million | 2154 million |
| Bus | PCIe x16 2.0 | PCIe 2.1 x16 |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 10 | DirectX 11 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 3.0 | OpenGL 3.2 |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.
Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.
GeForce 9800 GX2Amazon.com
Check prices at:
|
Radeon HD 5850Amazon.com
Check prices at:
|
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
|
Comments
Be the first to leave a comment!