GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 570, which comes with core clock speeds of 732 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 TAUs and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 570, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 75%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32880 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10080 (53%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.