GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which has clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 216 SPUs along with 72 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
	Difference: 8208 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is just a bit (about 6%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2304 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is a little bit (more or less 10%) better at AA than the GeForce 8800 Ultra, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (10%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends 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 maximum fill rate.