GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 will be 41% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (41%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (about 156%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48800 (156%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (about 54%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (54%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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