GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 57472 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is quite a bit (approximately 51%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12744 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.