GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980M, which comes with a clock frequency of 1038 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 71 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980M is 23% faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 24320 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M is much (more or less 154%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60480 (154%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot (more or less 352%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51744 (352%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.