GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be 10% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8976 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is a small bit (about 7%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 660 (7%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.