GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 260, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 999 MHz on this particular model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 27 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25488 (30%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be just a bit (approximately 0%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64 (0%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2328 (17%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.