GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 980, which features a clock speed of 1126 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 124 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 should be 0% quicker than the GeForce GTX 295 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
	Difference: 224 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is much (approximately 56%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 295. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51968 (56%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39808 (123%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.