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

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 23040 (36%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be quite a bit (about 54%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13176 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5940 (58%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.