GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 924 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 480 SPUs, 60 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 59% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 65520 (59%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a bit (more or less 1%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 528 (1%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17472 (108%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.