GeForce GTX 660 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which features a clock frequency of 1006 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 660		5063 points
	Difference: 2587 (51%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Geforce GTX 680 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 48064 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be quite a bit (more or less 64%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50368 (64%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be quite a bit (more or less 37%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 660, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8672 (37%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.