GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1026 MHz on this specific card. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is 14% faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 13392 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be quite a bit (approximately 44%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12672 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit (more or less 34%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.