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GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 features a core clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 999 MHz. It also makes use of a 448-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 28 ROPs.

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1026 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti 116 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 182 Watts
Difference: 66 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be quite a bit (about 28%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti 28800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 8064 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti 21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 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

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year June 16, 2008 March 2011
Code Name G200 GF116
Memory 896 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 576 MHz 900 MHz
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 4104 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts 116 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 98496 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 28800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 21600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 192
Texture Mapping Units 64 32
Render Output Units 28 24
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 448-bit 192-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 1400 million 1170 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

One Response to “GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti”
Good GTX260 upgrade? - ABXZone Computer Forums says:

[...] Good GTX260 upgrade? Some more GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare Btw when my Asus 470 broke they offered me a GTX 550 TI for trade (which I didn't take but that's [...]

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