GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 285 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, which comes with core speeds of 648 MHz on the GPU, and 1242 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 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 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB will be 24% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 30976 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (approximately 48%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (48%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 285 2GB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1536 (8%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.