GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 149 Watts (106%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 will be 55% faster than the GeForce GTX 660 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 79584 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is just a bit (about 18%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13760 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be much (approximately 37%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8736 (37%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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