GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which features core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 288 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 SE will be 88% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 51072 (88%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (about 25%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6144 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (approximately 66%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8272 (66%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.