GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a core clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

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 470		2937 points
	Difference: 2126 (72%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 10272 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (about 131%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44408 (131%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be a small bit (approximately 3%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 760 (3%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.