GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a small bit (about 3%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1000 (3%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (57%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.