GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with GPU clock speed of 675 MHz, and 768 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 295 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is quite a bit (more or less 144%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be quite a bit (about 99%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.