GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960, which features a clock speed of 1127 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960 should be 0% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 112 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a lot (about 96%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35264 (96%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19936 (124%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed per second.

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