GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which comes with clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 129 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should be 94% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108576 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is a lot (approximately 144%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54360 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be quite a bit (more or less 49%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 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 calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.