GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which comes with clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 64640 (102%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 212%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52176 (212%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (more or less 87%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8940 (87%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past 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 memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.