GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which features clock speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (about 34%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8544 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 31%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2928 (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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.