GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is 82% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 51840 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 54%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13176 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.