GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which features core clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 8208 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be a bit (about 6%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2304 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (10%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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