GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 570, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 732 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 950 MHz on this model. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 Texture Address Units and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 570 will be 36% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be a small bit (about 19%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7056 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.