GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 560, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 810 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1001 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 560 will be 15% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16240 (15%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be just a bit (approximately 9%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3888 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9792 (61%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.