GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which comes with core clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 216 SPUs along with 72 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 8208 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 will be just a bit (about 6%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2304 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is just a bit (more or less 10%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (10%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.