GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this specific card. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE will be 72% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 45440 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (approximately 27%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6576 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be much (approximately 103%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10540 (103%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.