GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1026 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is much (approximately 28%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8064 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.