GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 980M, which features a clock speed of 1038 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 71 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980M should be 23% faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 24320 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be a lot (about 154%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60480 (154%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51744 (352%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 reach the max fill rate.