GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with core clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (approximately 225%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75600 (225%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 57600 (600%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.