GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 26496 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (approximately 27%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10360 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2336 (12%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.