GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1502 MHz on this particular card. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 35392 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be much (approximately 115%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42000 (115%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is just a bit (more or less 13%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2720 (13%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.