GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which comes with core speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be 3% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a bit (about 3%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 936 (3%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.