GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 480, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of 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

The GeForce GTX 480, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be much (approximately 1067%) faster with regards to texture 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 running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.