GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 288 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should theoretically be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (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 should be quite a bit (about 33%) better at 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

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, by far. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.