GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 13392 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be quite a bit (approximately 44%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12672 (44%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5472 (34%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.