GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 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		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is a bit (about 3%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 936 (3%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.