GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260, which features a core clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 999 MHz. It also makes use of a 448-bit bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 260 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 25872 (30%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is quite a bit (about 81%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29952 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is much (approximately 107%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17280 (107%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.