GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which has clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (about 103%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39000 (103%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is just a bit (approximately 13%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (13%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.