GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 295, which comes with clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. 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		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 295 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be much (more or less 150%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55296 (150%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.