GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should be 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17280 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be a small bit (about 4%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1368 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1512 (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.