GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 965M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 965M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 944 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 965M should be 11% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be a lot (approximately 80%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26816 (80%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20608 (215%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.