GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is 82% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 51840 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is much (more or less 54%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13176 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11340 (111%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.