GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1026 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 173 Watts (149%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 295 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 125280 (127%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be quite a bit (approximately 220%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63360 (220%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.