GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. 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 GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should theoretically perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a little bit (approximately 3%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 936 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (about 34%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.