GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce 8800 Ultra

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which features GPU core speed of 612 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 1080 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17280 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra should be just a bit (more or less 6%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2368 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 888 (6%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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