GeForce GTX 260 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 680, which features GPU core speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 680 is 72% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 80368 (72%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is much (about 249%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91904 (249%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 100%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16064 (100%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number 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 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.