GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 950

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 950, which comes with a clock frequency of 1024 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1652 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 768 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 950 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 6160 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is a bit (more or less 19%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is a lot (approximately 103%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16640 (103%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number 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 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.