GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 295, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 999 MHz on this card. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 87 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should be 100% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 111888 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be much (about 122%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50688 (122%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is a lot (approximately 100%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16128 (100%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.