GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 960, which comes with clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 will be 58% quicker than the GeForce GTX 960 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a lot (approximately 72%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.