GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 230, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be much (more or less 200%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GS is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.