GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which features a core clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 11520 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra should be a small bit (more or less 4%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1368 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 47%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (47%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.