GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 837 MHz on this particular card. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 33 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 470 should theoretically be a little bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22032 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be just a bit (about 8%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2872 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8152 (51%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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 reach the max fill rate.