GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1026 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 12096 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is quite a bit (approximately 28%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (28%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit (approximately 57%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (57%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past 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 memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.