GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular 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 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is a small bit (approximately 10%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3672 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 34%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5472 (34%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.