GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which features a core clock frequency of 1127 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (30%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is quite a bit (approximately 96%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35328 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is quite a bit (about 161%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22264 (161%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of 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 speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.