GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which has a GPU core clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 855 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 216432 (193%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is quite a bit (more or less 87%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36224 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 590 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42144 (261%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.