GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260, which features clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (264%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 will be 289% quicker than the GeForce GT 420 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83088 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is a lot (about 558%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31264 (558%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be much (more or less 476%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13328 (476%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.