GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 570, which has GPU core speed of 732 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 950 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is comprised of 480 Stream Processors, 60 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 40112 (36%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be just a bit (about 6%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2448 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13152 (82%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.