GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. 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 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be 89% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (89%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a little bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be a lot (more or less 117%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (117%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.