GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare all that 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 as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 5632 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be a bit (more or less 2%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 432 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2268 (22%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.