GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which features a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 should be 3% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a small bit (about 18%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5664 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in a second.

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