GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which comes with GPU clock speed of 738 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GTX should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be much (more or less 28%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10432 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTX is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1992 (17%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.