GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 570, which comes with core speeds of 732 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 570 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (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 (approximately 6%) better at texture 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

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.