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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 features a GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM is set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 190 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 3% faster than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 124800 MB/sec
Difference: 3200 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 92%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 36800 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a little bit (approximately 20%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3200 (20%)

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

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.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

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Model GeForce 9800 GX2 Radeon HD 4890 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Mar 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name G92 RV790 XT
Memory 512 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz (x2) 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz (x2) 3900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 197 watts 190 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 124800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 76800 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19200 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 (x2) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 64 (x2) 40
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 million 959 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.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.

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