GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 230, which comes with a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GT 230 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be quite a bit (more or less 282%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24800 (282%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.