GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (48%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 109%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (109%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (approximately 39%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (39%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen 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 number of texture units by the core clock 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 applied 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. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.