GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a core clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 960 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

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 660		5063 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 1413 (39%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 33216 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is a lot (about 87%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36400 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit (approximately 43%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10080 (43%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.