GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 288 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GS in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (183%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a bit (about 18%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14200 (215%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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