GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this specific model. It features 288 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (26%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be much (about 21%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6600 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is quite a bit (more or less 28%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4600 (28%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.