GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular model. 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 GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3088 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be just a bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5664 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be much (more or less 29%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4672 (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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.