GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 295 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137376 (159%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be a lot (approximately 144%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16056 (99%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.