GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which has core speeds of 980 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units 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 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 32304 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a lot (more or less 89%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36928 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be much (approximately 46%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7392 (46%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.