GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 112 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 590, which features a core clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 855 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.