GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 640 DDR3

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 640 DDR3, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1782 MHz on this particular model. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		65 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is 1% faster than the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
	Difference: 576 (1%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be a little bit (approximately 17%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 640 DDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (50%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour 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 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.