GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which features a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1026 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should theoretically be a little bit superior to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 10304 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be quite a bit (more or less 26%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (4%)

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 past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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