GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is 100% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be much (about 51%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be a lot (more or less 72%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (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 clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range 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 worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.