GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 295, which comes with core clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 118 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 295 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 120096 (116%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be much (more or less 135%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52992 (135%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is quite a bit (more or less 120%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17568 (120%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.