GeForce GTX 460 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all that to the Geforce GTX 680, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this specific model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 5093 (199%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105856 (123%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be a lot (more or less 241%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90968 (241%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15992 (99%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.