GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which features clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (152%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be just a bit (about 3%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (approximately 211%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (211%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.