GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7850, which has GPU core speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1024 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be quite a bit (more or less 46%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17240 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be quite a bit (about 27%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5920 (27%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.