GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (approximately 63%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29568 (63%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7392 (63%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.