GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm features a GPU core speed of 576 MHz, and the 896 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is comprised of 216 SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 837 MHz on this specific card. It features 448 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 40 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

GeForce GTX 470 Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

Specifications

Model	GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm	GeForce GTX 470
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	December 22, 2008	March 2010
Code Name	G200b	GF100
Fab Process	55 nm	40 nm
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16
Memory	896 MB	1280 MB
Core Speed	576 MHz	607 MHz
Shader Speed	1242 MHz	1215 MHz
Memory Speed	999 MHz	837 MHz
Unified Shaders	216	448
Texture Mapping Units	72	56
Render Output Units	28	40
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	448-bit	320-bit
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.1
Power (Max TDP)	171 watts	215 watts
Shader Model	4.0	5.0
Bandwidth	111888 MB/sec	133920 MB/sec
Texel Rate	41472 Mtexels/sec	33992 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	16128 Mpixels/sec	24280 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.