GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 96 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (about 91%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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.