GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has core speeds of 941 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15888 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (approximately 154%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63920 (154%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6456 (40%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.