GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 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 card. It features 960 SPUs as well as 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 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 660 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 32304 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be quite a bit (more or less 89%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36928 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be much (more or less 46%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the 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 the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.