GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 700 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 137 Watts (228%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (344%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 586%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65600 (586%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (586%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.