GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 132608 (296%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (more or less 25%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (250%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

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