GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1026 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE is 10% faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 10304 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be a bit (approximately 8%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be a little bit (more or less 4%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (4%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few 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.