GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a core clock frequency of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed 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 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 32304 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (about 89%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36928 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (approximately 46%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7392 (46%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at 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 could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.