GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which features a core clock speed of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 902 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses 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 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 Ultra will be 80% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 45952 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is quite a bit (more or less 56%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14112 (56%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2160 (17%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in a second.

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