GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 288 SPUs along with 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 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 will be 3% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3088 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 will be much (more or less 33%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10272 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is much (approximately 29%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4672 (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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.