GeForce GTS 150 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be much faster than the GeForce GTS 150 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 should be a lot (more or less 25%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9560 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 82%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 150, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9760 (82%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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 max fill rate.