GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 47 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 111%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40400 (111%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a little bit (about 8%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (8%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.