GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 980, which features core speeds of 1126 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be a lot (about 281%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 106328 (281%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be a lot (approximately 234%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 50464 (234%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.