GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 480, which has a core clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 60 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 will be 63% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 68608 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a little bit (more or less 15%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (15%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (approximately 62%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (62%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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