GeForce GTX 660 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all that to the Geforce GTX 680, which has GPU core speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 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

The Geforce GTX 680, in theory, should perform a lot 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 is quite a bit (approximately 64%) faster with regards to texture filtering 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 is a lot (about 37%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and will be able to handle 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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.