GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which has GPU core speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 336 SPUs, 56 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 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 is 3% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is a little bit (more or less 1%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 464 (1%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.