GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with GPU core speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 will be 67% quicker than the GeForce GTX 470 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 89856 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is quite a bit (about 171%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58168 (171%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the GeForce GTX 470, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7976 (33%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.