GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 480, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 924 MHz on this model. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
	Difference: 713 (24%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 480, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 470 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 43488 (32%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is quite a bit (more or less 24%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8008 (24%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit (more or less 38%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 470, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9320 (38%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.