GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with GPU clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 448 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB should theoretically be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 25056 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB is a lot (approximately 53%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17848 (53%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be just a bit (more or less 17%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3544 (17%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of 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 its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.