GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 570, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 732 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 40112 (36%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is a small bit (about 6%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2448 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be much (more or less 82%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13152 (82%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.