GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 450, which has a clock speed of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 902 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 49 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTX should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 28672 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is a lot (approximately 47%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11744 (47%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTX is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1272 (10%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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