GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 47 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 will be 18% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (more or less 146%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45600 (146%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be a bit (about 8%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (8%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated 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 applied in a second.

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