GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7770, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be 60% faster than the Radeon HD 7770 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 should be a little bit (approximately 6%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (35%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.