GeForce GTX 275 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 275 will be 17% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 18208 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 will be much (more or less 62%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19440 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be just a bit (about 17%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 275, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3076 (17%)

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 within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.