GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 45952 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be much (about 56%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14112 (56%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is a small bit (more or less 17%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2160 (17%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.