GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which comes with a core clock speed of 915 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1344 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 280 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 2304 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should be a lot (approximately 113%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54320 (113%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2696 (14%)

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 moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the 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 core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.