GeForce GTS 450 1GB 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 running at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also features 192 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be much (about 47%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is quite a bit (about 29%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.