GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1026 MHz on this model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra is 5% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 5184 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be much (approximately 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10368 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be quite a bit (about 47%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (47%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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