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GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 999 MHz on this particular model. It features 216 SPUs along with 72 Texture Address Units and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

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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

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (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 is a lot (about 33%) faster with regards to AF 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 should be a lot (more or less 29%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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

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GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

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GeForce GTX 460 SE

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce GTX 260 Core 216	GeForce GTX 460 SE
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	September 16, 2008	November 2010
Code Name	G200	GF104
Memory	896 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	576 MHz	650 MHz
Memory Speed	1998 MHz	3400 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	202 watts	150 watts
Bandwidth	111888 MB/sec	108800 MB/sec
Texel Rate	41472 Mtexels/sec	31200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	16128 Mpixels/sec	20800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	216	288
Texture Mapping Units	72	48
Render Output Units	28	32
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	448-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	65 nm	40 nm
Transistors	1400 million	1950 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 potential to get to the max fill rate.

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