GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which features a clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (approximately 103%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39000 (103%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GX2, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.