GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (76%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 7790 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is a lot (approximately 54%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be much (approximately 30%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7790, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (30%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.