GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features 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 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 65520 (59%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a little bit (more or less 1%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 528 (1%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.