GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (104%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be a bit faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8960 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be quite a bit (approximately 40%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7024 (40%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB will be quite a bit (about 133%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5860 (133%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.