GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific 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 GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB, in theory, should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be a small bit (approximately 3%) faster with regards to texture 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

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is quite a bit (about 34%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.