GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which features core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 288 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 295 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 114976 (106%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be much (more or less 195%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60960 (195%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is quite a bit (about 55%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (55%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.