GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 448 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470 should in theory perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22032 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be a lot (more or less 22%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7480 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8152 (51%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.