GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 129 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 295, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108576 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be much (about 144%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54360 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be quite a bit (approximately 49%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.