GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with a core clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25488 (30%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be a bit (more or less 10%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3672 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 72 (0%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.