GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), in theory, should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 8800 Ultra overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra will be a small bit (more or less 8%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2768 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.