GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 560, which comes with GPU core speed of 810 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1001 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 will be 24% quicker than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 24448 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be a small bit (approximately 16%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6192 (16%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11232 (76%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.