GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is comprised of 216 Stream Processors, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 54160 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be quite a bit (about 66%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16416 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be much (about 29%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (29%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.