GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 850 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 32896 (30%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be much (approximately 32%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11760 (32%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 280, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1536 (8%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred 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 must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high 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 of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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