GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260, which features a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 260 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is much (about 47%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be quite a bit (more or less 29%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.