GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 295

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 295, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 999 MHz on this specific model. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (141%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 295 should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 27168 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is a small bit (approximately 18%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 295. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16272 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40032 (124%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.