GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 295, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 999 MHz on this particular model. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (141%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 27168 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be a small bit (more or less 18%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 295. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16272 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40032 (124%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR 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 amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.