GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 560, which features clock speeds of 810 MHz on the GPU, and 1001 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. 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 560		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 560 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16240 (15%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be quite a bit (about 23%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8496 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9792 (61%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.