GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 480, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 924 MHz on this specific card. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 1093 (43%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 91008 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a little bit (approximately 11%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit (approximately 107%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 460, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17400 (107%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.