GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce GT 230

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 230, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 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 230		65 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be a lot (about 200%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (200%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS should be quite a bit (about 50%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 230, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.