GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 480, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 924 MHz on this model. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 119808 (208%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (approximately 25%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.