GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 850 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 127 Watts (181%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (135%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (approximately 336%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (336%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (about 336%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.