GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 55296 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be much (more or less 27%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10360 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3064 (19%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.