GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1126 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be much (about 329%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 110528 (329%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 62464 (651%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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.