GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which comes with clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 855 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 205 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 should be 185% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 213120 (185%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is a lot (more or less 106%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39896 (106%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is much (about 170%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36672 (170%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.