GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 465

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 465, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 802 MHz on this particular card. It features 352 SPUs along with 44 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 465 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 9296 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be quite a bit (approximately 55%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14764 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 465 is a small bit (about 20%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3296 (20%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.