GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular model. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 295 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 114976 (106%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be much (about 153%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55760 (153%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (55%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.