GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which has GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 65920 (106%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (more or less 85%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92). (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (85%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (85%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.