GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 660, which features a GPU core clock speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 960 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 660		5063 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 1413 (39%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 480, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 33216 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is much (about 87%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36400 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the GeForce GTX 660, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10080 (43%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.