GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 590, which has core speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 855 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. 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 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 215 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 219520 (202%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be much (approximately 149%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46496 (149%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot (approximately 180%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37472 (180%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.