GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which has a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 101 Watts (144%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra is 91% quicker than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 49280 (91%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be quite a bit (approximately 123%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21568 (123%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10288 (234%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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