GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 260, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 999 MHz on this specific card. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units 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 will be 30% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be just a bit (about 0%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a small bit (about 17%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.