GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1126 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (106%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (about 362%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 112928 (362%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51264 (246%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.