GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

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

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 in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (approximately 115%) more effective 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

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), not by a very large margin though. (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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.