GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with GPU core speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be much (approximately 151%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a bit (approximately 13%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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