GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 124800 (108%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be much (more or less 137%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51800 (137%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB is a little bit (approximately 19%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (19%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed per second.

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