GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is 3% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3088 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be quite a bit (about 33%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10272 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4672 (29%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.