GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, which has core clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 54160 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a lot (approximately 66%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16416 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is much (more or less 29%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 450, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (29%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 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 max fill rate.