GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which features GPU clock speed of 675 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 336 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is a small bit (approximately 10%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3672 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5472 (34%)

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 moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.