GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 560, which comes with clock speeds of 810 MHz on the GPU, and 1001 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs 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

The GeForce GTX 560, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be quite a bit (approximately 23%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA 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		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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.