GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which features GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM 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.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 24320 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (more or less 96%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37632 (96%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4512 (31%)

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 across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.