GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 675 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (157%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be just a bit (about 13%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is quite a bit (more or less 125%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (125%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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