GeForce GTX 480 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which features a core clock frequency of 1006 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 4000 (110%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 480 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 14848 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is quite a bit (approximately 207%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 86768 (207%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is just a bit (approximately 4%) better at FSAA than the Geforce GTX 680, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (4%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.