Confused about the GeForce 400 and 500 series

explodatron

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I am shopping for a new video card for my next build. I have been looking through the 500 series and noticing a few of them are much cheaper than cards in the 400 series. What is the deal with cards like the 480 being far superior to the 550 ti? Aren't the 500 series cards newer than the 400?

Oh and since I'm here, I have another question. What is the deal with the core/shader clock speeds in relation to the stream processors? Seems that with higher clock speeds there is always a much lower number of stream processors. Is it better to have high clock speeds and low stream processors, or the other way around, or something else?

Thanks.
 
Solution
I can only answer your first set of questions, someone with more knowledge will hopefully be able to help you out with the rest.

When a new series of cards comes out, it doesn't mean that they are all automatically better than the previous series. There will always be the lower end of a series, the middle, and the extreme high end. Low end cards of the 500 series, such as a 520, will not be better than high end cards of the 400 series, like the 470. Does that make sense?

Also, with most series, and is the case with the 400 and 500 series, the older series is outdone by the equivalent numbered card of the current series. For example, the 560 beats the 460 for performance, even though they are both at the same spot in each of their...

trogdor796

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Nov 26, 2009
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I can only answer your first set of questions, someone with more knowledge will hopefully be able to help you out with the rest.

When a new series of cards comes out, it doesn't mean that they are all automatically better than the previous series. There will always be the lower end of a series, the middle, and the extreme high end. Low end cards of the 500 series, such as a 520, will not be better than high end cards of the 400 series, like the 470. Does that make sense?

Also, with most series, and is the case with the 400 and 500 series, the older series is outdone by the equivalent numbered card of the current series. For example, the 560 beats the 460 for performance, even though they are both at the same spot in each of their series. It isn't a major performance, gain, only like 10-20% most of the time.
 
Solution

explodatron

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Oh alright that makes a lot of sense. I automatically assumed the first card in the new series should be better than the last card in the last series. Silly me!

Thanks a bunch. Now hopefully someone can answer my second question!