GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 560, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 810 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1001 MHz on this particular model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 560 will be 15% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is a lot (about 23%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8496 (23%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across 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 type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.