GeForce GTX 480 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 680, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this particular model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 4000 (110%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 480 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 14848 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be much (about 207%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 86768 (207%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a little bit (approximately 4%) more effective at FSAA than the Geforce GTX 680, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (4%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.