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GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 999 MHz on this specific model. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 Texture Address Units and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1026 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

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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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 will be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall, because of its higher 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 is much (more or less 44%) more effective at texture filtering 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (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

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GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

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GeForce GTX 550 Ti

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce GTX 260 Core 216	GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	September 16, 2008	March 2011
Code Name	G200	GF116
Memory	896 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	576 MHz	900 MHz
Memory Speed	1998 MHz	4104 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	202 watts	116 watts
Bandwidth	111888 MB/sec	98496 MB/sec
Texel Rate	41472 Mtexels/sec	28800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	16128 Mpixels/sec	21600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	216	192
Texture Mapping Units	72	32
Render Output Units	28	24
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	448-bit	192-bit
Fab Process	65 nm	40 nm
Transistors	1400 million	1170 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

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