GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which comes with GPU clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a bit (more or less 1%) faster with regards to AF 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

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be much (more or less 29%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.