GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 470, which has GPU core speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 448 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 30240 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be a little bit (about 15%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5176 (15%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is quite a bit (more or less 65%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9592 (65%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.