GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, which comes with clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be 94% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 54160 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be quite a bit (more or less 66%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16416 (66%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.