GeForce 8800 GTX vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this specific card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8800 GTX overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105856 (123%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be a lot (about 250%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91968 (250%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18392 (133%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output 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.