GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 570, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 732 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 950 MHz on this particular model. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 570 should be a 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 will be much (more or less 75%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is a lot (approximately 53%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.