GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 40896 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB will be a little bit (about 17%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be much (more or less 125%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (125%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.