Graphic Cards comparing cards specs

I

id1x

Disciple
hi , i feel a little confused by things to look at when comparing cards in specs
i was a little tricked by clock speed and memory clock when i compared
between 9800 gtx + and gtx 260

the 260 was expensive and way under the massive 750 core clock of the 9800
so i was thinking it cant be that good . lets go for the core clock .
now i feel kinda regret i didnt get it so lets say cards specs are like this :

1_ Processor Cores
2_Graphics Clock
3_Processor Clock
4_Memory Clock
5_Standard Memory Config
6_Memory Interface Width
7_Memory Bandwidth

ok great . if these arent the main head lines plz corrects me

what i know now is the core clock and memory clock are not important
i mean you can have a card with 576 core clock and 1100 memory clock
and still do better than a 750 / 1300 clocks

i know also that the stranded memory config dosnt also matter a lot
since a new 512 mb card can do a lot better than another 1 gb card from
another brand/kind . or older

well what dose matter then ? the factory list for the products ?
i mean if they just tell me its better i just go buy it? without knowing haw much
its better ? honestly i dont think the gtx 260 or gtx 275 are way better than
the 9800 gtx+ what proves i am wrong ?

thanks , i know i talk a lot but its just an attempt for a newbie to learn something
in the daily changes and rushes in video card market ..
i know all these cards in the shops now wont last a couple of years
and will all be outdated am just trying to develop my skills in buying
thanks
 
^^ It's the architecture that makes or breaks the card. Remember when C2D was launched in 2006. Even E6300 (the old one) was outgunning a 3Ghz P4. So core and memory speeds are important only if you are comparing the card based on same architecture.

GTX260 and 9800GTX are based on different architectures, so they are not comparable. But you can take it for granted that any new generation card will be better than a *comparable* card from the previous generation.

Now that you are comfortable with comparing specs, I think it is the time for you to move up on the ladder. From next time also compare:



Texture Fill rate: TMUs X Core Clock

Pixel Fill rate: ROPs X core clock

Memory bandwidth: Bus width/8 * Memory speed (actual and not reported)

Lets compare the GTX260 and 9800GTX+ now ;)

Pixel fill Rate

GTX260 : 28 X 576 = 16.1 GPixel/s

9800GTX+ : 16 X 738 = 11.8 GPixel/s

Texture Fill Rate

GTX260 : 64 X 576 = 38.8 GTexel/s

9800GTX+ : 64 X 738 = 47.2 GTexel/s



Memory bandwidth

GTX260 : 448/8 X 1998 = 111 GB/s

9800GTX+ : 256/8 X 2200 = 70.4 GB/s

Of course, these figures too don't really give you an exact idea but they are enough to tell you which card is more powerful. But again, there is a lot more to architecture than just Pixels and Texel processors.
 
morgoth said:
But you can take it for granted that any new generation card will be better than a *comparable* card from the previous generation.

Memory bandwidth[/COLOR]

GTX260 : 448/8 X 1998 = 111 GB/s

9800GTX+ : 256/8 X 2200 = 70.4 GB/s

.
Click to expand...

ok i see , but the 9800gtx+ amp edition that i bought in April was newer

than the 260 gtx card they had i know the 200 group is newer but that edition came late with the overclocking 750 core and that what tricked me .

i see big difference there in that figure dose that means the gtx 260

is 2 times better ?

i see mild difference here :

VGA Charts - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. & Quake Wars

only few points not worth the trouble in a couple years both of these cards

will meet a good recycling bin anyway ..

but anyway i learned this :

1_ i thought the 200 gtx and the 9800 is the same architecture (nvidia)

but i was wrong . i must look in same group right ?

2_ i must look most important at Memory bandwidth and prefere higher

values no matter what the core and memory clocks are .

is that correct ? thanks a lot
 
id1x said:
ok i see , but the 9800gtx+ amp edition that i bought in April was newer
than the 260 gtx card they had i know the 200 group is newer but that edition came late with the overclocking 750 core and that what tricked me .

i see big difference there in that figure dose that means the gtx 260
is 2 times better ?

i see mild difference here :

VGA Charts - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. & Quake Wars

only few points not worth the trouble in a couple years both of these cards
will meet a good recycling bin anyway ..

but anyway i learned this :

1_ i thought the 200 gtx and the 9800 is the same architecture (nvidia)
but i was wrong . i must look in same group right ?

2_ i must look most important at Memory bandwidth and prefere higher
values no matter what the core and memory clocks are .

is that correct ? thanks a lot
Click to expand...

The time of launch doesn't matter much. What matters is the underlying architecture. For example, GTS250 is based on G92 architecture. In fact the 512MB RAM parts are just recycled 9800GTX+ and are completely different from GTX260. And yes, it's always better to compare cards using specs from the same group

Memory bandwidth is important but as I said earlier, you can't judge a card on the basis of just one factor.

Graphics cards and the games which they are supposed to render are part of very complex computing. There are many factors involved when it comes to real life performance of a graphics card and the performance scaling is never perfect.
 
ok good link, so the 9800gtx and the gts 250 is based on g92 ?

and what is the gtx 260 based on?

Sei said:
with the other components you already have, you should have gone for a better graphics card IMHO :)
Click to expand...

i am not sure what to think , i still believe the 9800gtx+ is good and new

card . and not less than the other components .

i believe from the study i made that real differences are small between

theses cards : 9800gtx+,gts250,gtx260,hd4850,hd4870 on a 22 monitor

and that non of them wont last for long anyway so no need to worry

about that small differences as long a u have to replace them so

soon , haw long did the 9800gtx+ last before they made the 200 series?

less that 6 month ? :bleh:

the higher cards in the 200 series starting gtx 275 or the hd4890

is out of my budget i could have got the gtx 260 but i didnt

they had the clock core 576 one not the 650 clock core

and the 9800 amp edition looked newer and fresh

a newbie mistake maybe? well anyway the real differences

between them is not worth the moaning ..

there is nothing out there the gtx 260 can do and the 9800gtx+ cant do

at the present time on a 22 monitor . am not really a maxed setting

fanatic . ill just lower that aa a bit ,adjust settings for the magic 60 fps

and set VSync as it goes..

believe me on the long run non of these cards will live to see its 2rd

year lol with dx11 coming out ..and windows 7 .. the wind

of change is closer than ever this time for vga buyers

and i dont intend to keep the 9800gtx+ for long , mid 2010 i guess

i will go for a new one i have good infra structure that will accept

any future upgrades .

sry for talking a lot its not about the 9800 i bought , as u see am a newbie

that is trying to learn . as u said vga is quite a complicated business

it was much easier for me with the rest of the components :rofl:
 
its funny haw things can get confusing suddenly i am used to buy the high end cards

of any nvidia series i never deal with things like 8400 , 9600 ex....

i get the best card of any series and wait for the next series to pile up .

the 200 series actually tricked me coz i thought the 250,260 are the low end of it .

but it piled up so fast and the hig end of it was so extreme for normal users

i actually was surprised to see it coming so soon after the 9800 gx2

when i was going for the king of the 9 series the 9800 gtx+

was only few months difference . really confusing ...

i think what i need to do in the future is escaping to ati like everyone did

if i got the 4870 i would have saved my self all this pain lol
 
GTX 260 - GTX 280 corresponds

GTX 275 - GTX 285 - GTX 295 corresponds

the OCed gtx 260 can match with GTX 280

GTX 275 & GTX 285 20% performance difference either they belong to the same chipset

The OCed GTX 285 reach performance of GTX 295

That u can see the Pixel rate , bandwidth , Cores makes the difference but they are same Chipset , But 9800GTX is different
 
^ wow thanks for opening my eyes , oced 285 can match 295 :O made a mistake by wasting double money on 295 :(

:rofl: time to sell my card and buy 285 and oc :rofl:
 
i dont oc coz the hot weather here and i dont know haw to mess with expensive stuff

like that .. anything byond the 260 is not in my budget ..

like i said i could have got the 576 core clock zotac 260 but i chickened out

thinking its a low end of the 200 series ...

i learned that a 7900 gtx would be better than a 8400 and so . that was my idea

but i still think its not that huge difference between the 9800gtx+ and the gtx 260

it dosnt show more than few points on any benchmark
 
RoBoGhOsT said:
^ wow thanks for opening my eyes , oced 285 can match 295 :O made a mistake by wasting double money on 295 :(

:rofl: time to sell my card and buy 285 and oc :rofl:
Click to expand...
OOps sorry just made BIG mistake its GTX 280 Oced to GTX 285 performance same !!

Note - Typing mistake Srry :(
 
Shripad said:
Really????

I sometimes wish I wasn't a mod :(
Click to expand...

:rofl:

@damngoodman: What is a chipset in a graphics card? I think it's just a chip unlike in motherboard where there is also a set :ashamed:
 
What else but GT200, a chip - one chip - with 240 fully generalised 1D scalar shader processors, 80 texture units and 32 ROPs that back out onto a 512-bit memory interface and a 1GB frame buffer (from Bit Tech)

There is no set here. I mean, you don't call a graphics chip a chipset. It's just not conventional. You associate word chipset with motherboards because there a new chip, for example P965, denotes a new platform with an NB and SB.
 
i used to think that core clock in gpu is like the cpu clock speed in cpus

so i was surprised to see it lower in the GT200 architecture

maybe its the name that tricked me gpu=cpu
 
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