GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which features a core clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 960 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 86464 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (approximately 213%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53344 (213%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10992 (88%)

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 transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.