GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 855 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 161 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 169344 (107%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 will be a lot (about 50%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25856 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is a lot (about 181%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37536 (181%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.