GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 675 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 26496 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (about 27%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10360 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2336 (12%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.