GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular card. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (159%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be a lot (more or less 197%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72400 (197%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GTX, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 53400 (387%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one 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 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 that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.