GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which has core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 132608 (296%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (approximately 25%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (more or less 250%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (250%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.