GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450, which has a core clock speed of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 902 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 450 should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 34%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8544 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2928 (31%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.