GeForce GTX 1050 vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1050 should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		114688 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 2800 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 will be a lot (approximately 47%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		54160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17296 (47%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		43328 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (169%)

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 interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 processed in one second. This number 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 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.