GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which has a clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 855 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 4123 (161%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 215 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 241920 (280%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 will be a lot (more or less 106%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is quite a bit (more or less 260%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42072 (260%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.