GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular model. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should theoretically perform a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is quite a bit (more or less 26%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7968 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (approximately 42%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6112 (42%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.