GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which features a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 205 Watts (456%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 164608 (1286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (approximately 1067%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38400 (1067%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31800 (1767%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.