GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 57472 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 51%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12744 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (about 72%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 450, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9072 (72%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.