GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which has a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 288 SPUs, 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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should be much faster than 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 quite a bit (more or less 195%) more effective at 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

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is the winner, by a large margin. (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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.