GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce 8800 Ultra

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which uses a 90 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 612 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 1080 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra is 80% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 46080 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is a little bit (approximately 17%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5568 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (53%)

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 across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.