GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460, which features GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is a little bit (about 3%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1000 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be just a bit (more or less 17%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.