GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a bit (more or less 10%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3672 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5472 (34%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.