GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 999 MHz on this specific card. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (approximately 85%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35328 (85%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3072 (19%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.