GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 960, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 3977 (109%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 will be 58% faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 65408 (58%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is a lot (approximately 72%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30128 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a small bit (approximately 7%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 480, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2464 (7%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.