GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 470, which features a GPU core clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 448 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 33 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 470 will be 20% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22032 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be a little bit (approximately 8%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2872 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8152 (51%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.