GeForce GTX 295 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1120 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 295 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
	Difference: 5600 (3%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be much (approximately 75%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 295. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69120 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 480 4GB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3584 (11%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.