GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 560, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 810 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1001 MHz on this particular model. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units 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 data rate. (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 should be just a bit (approximately 9%) better 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 using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is a better choice, by far. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.