GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 960, which features clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960 should theoretically be much better 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 (about 96%) more effective at AF 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 should be a lot (more or less 161%) better at AA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.