GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which has core speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 86% quicker than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 88704 (86%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (more or less 26%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10240 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22368 (152%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.