GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 470, which features a clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 837 MHz. It also features a 320-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, 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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (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 much (about 22%) faster with regards to AF 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 (approximately 51%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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