GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460, which features clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 768 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 280 is 64% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 55296 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (about 27%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10360 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3064 (19%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.