GeForce GTX 660 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which has a core clock frequency of 1006 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1536 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 660		5063 points
	Difference: 2587 (51%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 660 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 48064 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be much (more or less 64%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50368 (64%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the GeForce GTX 660, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8672 (37%)

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

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

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