GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980 is 100% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 112112 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (approximately 248%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 102656 (248%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 55936 (347%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 processed in one second.

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