GeForce GTX 570 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this specific model. It features 960 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 24 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 660		5063 points
GeForce GTX 570		4387 points
	Difference: 676 (15%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 660 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 7808 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (more or less 79%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34480 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be a lot (more or less 24%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5760 (24%)

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 across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.