GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 902 MHz on this particular model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (86%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 70272 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 207%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51744 (207%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6672 (53%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video 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 Render Output Units 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.