GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 465

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 465, which has clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 802 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. 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		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 should be 9% faster than the GeForce GTX 465 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a lot (more or less 38%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10156 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 465 is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.