GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with GPU core speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 448 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 470 should be 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22032 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be quite a bit (more or less 22%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7480 (22%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot (more or less 51%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.