GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific 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 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 129 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 295 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108576 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be a lot (about 144%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54360 (144%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10656 (49%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.